Bush faces ultimatum on immigration ban: Seventh International Conference on AIDS held in Florence last week

The Bush administration has until early August to remove restrictions
on travel and immigration for people with HIV, or next year’s AIDS conference
in Boston will be called off. Max Essex, chair of the 1992 conference, said
he was ‘not hopeful’ that the meeting would take place. Essex said the ‘crass,
domestic American political agenda’ had conspired with the ultimatums of
activists to deny the free exchange of information necessary to fight AIDS.
While in the US, people with AIDS have a voice, albeit poorly heard, people
in the Third World were the vast majority of those affected by the virus
and they ‘will almost certainly die with no voice at all’, said Essex.